Top 10 Colleges that Should have NCAA D1 Scholarship bearing Baseball Programs but Don't have them!!

RT Staff Note: Article from College Baseball Underground.

Some of the teams on this list are southern teams which is very surprising that there are no teams on those campuses. However, there are quite a few Northern and snow laden schools which are on the list. My longstanding strong opinion has been to play fall games that count towards league play for the cold weather schools. Enjoy the rundown.

1. University of Tulsa - Division 1A Football, The state of Oklahoma to draw from, Warm Weather. There's just a few positives that could really help the program out. According to the Baseball Almanac 8 major leaguers came out of the program before it was dropped. Turns out quite a few former players raised quite bit of cash to bring the program back but no dice per the University. Good article with former major leaguer Steve Rogers highlights the history of the program and how they college nixed them on bringing the program back. No club team exists on campus.

2. University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) - Division 1A Football, Conference USA, warm weather, fast growing economy. Need I say more? This program was actually kind of hard to find information on but turns out that the team was actually voluntarily coached by the legendary Cohen brothers who both played major league baseball for a number of years. Sadly, both of the brothers died within 6 months of each other in the mid 1980's and the program faltered after that. Naturally the college blamed it on gpa and anyone but themselves. No club team exists on campus.

3. Portland State - Growing baseball area, Neighbors Oregon State took some titles a few years ago and their other neighbor University of Oregon just built the Ducks a beautiful stadium along with resurrecting the team after a 26 year absence of the program. There's definitely talent in that neck of the woods. There isn't even a club team on campus.

4. Colorado State - This team is the LSU of the "Club Baseball" (www.clubbaseball.com) world and could give a number of NCAA teams a run for their money. The Colorado State Rams have taken several NCBA championships under Coach Mike Abernathy and are poised to take many more as the year goes on. Out of all the programs I would be really curious to see how this team would handle a NCAA D1 schedule.

5. Syracuse University - Division 1A Football, basketball. However they do produce a pretty mean Woman's Hockey and softball teams which both get more scholarships than the men's basketball team. No worries though, S.U. Basketball draws in 30,000 people for big games. I do a little "consulting" for this team myself and introduced them to the local baseball training center in town that produced a catcher for the Clemson Tigers. Also built them their first website and built up a fan base of over 600 fans via their official facebook fan page. Just a little pet project for in between articles. Like many club baseball teams, their funding from the college is around $1,000 per year. The rest comes from the players. When Syracuse University did have an NCAA team they ended up producing 10 major leaguers.

6. University of Wisconsin Badgers - Yet another Division 1A football school without baseball. A club baseball team does exist on campus.

7. University of New Hampshire - The program that produced Carlton Fisk. Apparently a club team still exists. Need I say more?

8. Providence College - Primary subject for the book "Strike IX" by Paul Lonardo(which is an excellent book everyone should buy http://paullonardo.com/lonardo-strike.htm) The Providence College Friars took the Big East Title their last year and even had the Florida State Seminole "Animals"(an FSU specialty cheering section) cheering for them in one of their title games at Dick Howser Stadium. Great story with a sad ending. No baseball team at all exists on campus, not even in club form.

9. Boise State Broncos - Many people think their football team is top notch and underrated. Broncos football gets national attention every year. The campus should do something for baseball. Club baseball does exist on campus.

10. Montana Grizzlies - Even though they're a top notch D1AA football team which finished runner up for the 1AA football championship this year, the baseball team needs some financing as well. Their team exists as club only.

Stupidest Baseball Conference of the Year Award Goes to: The Big East - They've only managed to let Syracuse University, Providence College, Marquette and Depaul slip away. This conference out of all of them should be leading the way in doing something to bring these teams back.

Honorable Mentions: Marquette, DePaul, Wyoming, Idaho State, U of Idaho, Iowa State, Colorado, Southern Methodist, Vermont, Northern Iowa

To see the full list of colleges that have dropped division baseball, see the weblink below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Division_I_colleges_that_do_not_sponsor_baseball